Polarity-driven oxygen vacancy formation in ultrathin films on
Abstract
Oxide heterostructures offer a pathway to control emergent phases in complex oxides, but their creation often leads to boundaries that have a polar discontinuity. In order to fabricate atomic-scale arrangements of dissimilar materials, we need a clear understanding of the pathways by which materials resolve polarity issues. By examining the real-time lattice structure in-situ during growth for the case of polar LaNiO3 synthesized on non-polar SrTiO3 (001), we demonstrate how films in ultra-thin limit form as LaNiO2.5 and then evolve into LaNiO3 as the thickness increases. Theory explains how the polar energetics drives the formation of oxygen vacancies and the stability of these phases with thickness and structure.
- Authors:
-
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Advanced Photon Source (APS); Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States). Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering
- Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States). Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering
- Korea Atomic Energy Research Inst., Daejeon (Republic of Korea). Neutron Science Division
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Materials Science Division
- Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States). Materials Research Lab., Dept. of Physics
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Advanced Photon Source (APS)
- Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States). Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering; Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division; National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1425266
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1400007
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-06CH11357; DMR-1121288; ACI-1053575
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Physical Review Materials
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 1; Journal Issue: 5; Journal ID: ISSN 2475-9953
- Publisher:
- American Physical Society (APS)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
Citation Formats
Tung, I-Cheng, Luo, Guangfu, Lee, June Hyuk, Chang, Seo Hyoung, Moyer, Jarrett, Hong, Hawoong, Bedzyk, Michael J., Zhou, Hua, Morgan, Dane, Fong, Dillon D., and Freeland, John W. Polarity-driven oxygen vacancy formation in ultrathin LaNiO3 films on SrTiO3. United States: N. p., 2017.
Web. doi:10.1103/physrevmaterials.1.053404.
Tung, I-Cheng, Luo, Guangfu, Lee, June Hyuk, Chang, Seo Hyoung, Moyer, Jarrett, Hong, Hawoong, Bedzyk, Michael J., Zhou, Hua, Morgan, Dane, Fong, Dillon D., & Freeland, John W. Polarity-driven oxygen vacancy formation in ultrathin LaNiO3 films on SrTiO3. United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevmaterials.1.053404
Tung, I-Cheng, Luo, Guangfu, Lee, June Hyuk, Chang, Seo Hyoung, Moyer, Jarrett, Hong, Hawoong, Bedzyk, Michael J., Zhou, Hua, Morgan, Dane, Fong, Dillon D., and Freeland, John W. Wed .
"Polarity-driven oxygen vacancy formation in ultrathin LaNiO3 films on SrTiO3". United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevmaterials.1.053404. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1425266.
@article{osti_1425266,
title = {Polarity-driven oxygen vacancy formation in ultrathin LaNiO3 films on SrTiO3},
author = {Tung, I-Cheng and Luo, Guangfu and Lee, June Hyuk and Chang, Seo Hyoung and Moyer, Jarrett and Hong, Hawoong and Bedzyk, Michael J. and Zhou, Hua and Morgan, Dane and Fong, Dillon D. and Freeland, John W.},
abstractNote = {Oxide heterostructures offer a pathway to control emergent phases in complex oxides, but their creation often leads to boundaries that have a polar discontinuity. In order to fabricate atomic-scale arrangements of dissimilar materials, we need a clear understanding of the pathways by which materials resolve polarity issues. By examining the real-time lattice structure in-situ during growth for the case of polar LaNiO3 synthesized on non-polar SrTiO3 (001), we demonstrate how films in ultra-thin limit form as LaNiO2.5 and then evolve into LaNiO3 as the thickness increases. Theory explains how the polar energetics drives the formation of oxygen vacancies and the stability of these phases with thickness and structure.},
doi = {10.1103/physrevmaterials.1.053404},
journal = {Physical Review Materials},
number = 5,
volume = 1,
place = {United States},
year = {2017},
month = {10}
}
Web of Science
Figures / Tables:

Works referenced in this record:
Ab initio defect energetics of perovskite (001) surfaces for solid oxide fuel cells: A comparative study of versus and
journal, May 2015
- Lee, Yueh-Lin; Morgan, Dane
- Physical Review B, Vol. 91, Issue 19
Turning a Nickelate Fermi Surface into a Cupratelike One through Heterostructuring
journal, June 2009
- Hansmann, P.; Yang, Xiaoping; Toschi, A.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 103, Issue 1
Structural Basis for the Conducting Interface between and
journal, October 2007
- Willmott, P. R.; Pauli, S. A.; Herger, R.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 99, Issue 15, Article No. 155502
Lattice mismatch accommodation via oxygen vacancy ordering in epitaxial La 0.5 Sr 0.5 CoO 3-δ thin films
journal, July 2013
- Gazquez, J.; Bose, Shameek; Sharma, M.
- APL Materials, Vol. 1, Issue 1
Orbital Order and Possible Superconductivity in Superlattices
journal, January 2008
- Chaloupka, Jiří; Khaliullin, Giniyat
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 100, Issue 1
Direct determination of epitaxial interface structure in Gd2O3 passivation of GaAs
journal, October 2002
- Yacoby, Yizhak; Sowwan, Mukhles; Stern, Edward
- Nature Materials, Vol. 1, Issue 2
Polarity of oxide surfaces and nanostructures
journal, December 2007
- Goniakowski, Jacek; Finocchi, Fabio; Noguera, Claudine
- Reports on Progress in Physics, Vol. 71, Issue 1
Role of polar compensation in interfacial ferromagnetism of superlattices
journal, July 2017
- Flint, C. L.; Jang, H.; Lee, J. -S.
- Physical Review Materials, Vol. 1, Issue 2
LaAlO3 stoichiometry is key to electron liquid formation at LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interfaces
journal, August 2013
- Warusawithana, M. P.; Richter, C.; Mundy, J. A.
- Nature Communications, Vol. 4, Issue 1
Electric-Field Control of the Metal-Insulator Transition in Ultrathin NdNiO3 Films
journal, October 2010
- Scherwitzl, Raoul; Zubko, Pavlo; Lezama, I. Gutierrez
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 22, Issue 48
Connecting bulk symmetry and orbital polarization in strained RNiO ultrathin films
journal, November 2013
- Tung, I. C.; Balachandran, P. V.; Liu, Jian
- Physical Review B, Vol. 88, Issue 20
Polar oxide surfaces
journal, July 2000
- Noguera, Claudine
- Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, Vol. 12, Issue 31
Effect of polar discontinuity on the growth of LaNiO3/LaAlO3 superlattices
journal, March 2010
- Liu, Jian; Kareev, M.; Prosandeev, S.
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 96, Issue 13
Colloquium : Emergent properties in plane view: Strong correlations at oxide interfaces
journal, October 2014
- Chakhalian, Jak; Freeland, John W.; Millis, Andrew J.
- Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 86, Issue 4
Suppression of Near-Fermi Level Electronic States at the Interface in a Superlattice
journal, September 2011
- Kaiser, A. M.; Gray, A. X.; Conti, G.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 107, Issue 11
Perspective: Oxide molecular-beam epitaxy rocks!
journal, June 2015
- Schlom, Darrell G.
- APL Materials, Vol. 3, Issue 6
Atomic-scale control of competing electronic phases in ultrathin LaNiO3
journal, April 2014
- King, P. D. C.; Wei, H. I.; Nie, Y. F.
- Nature Nanotechnology, Vol. 9, Issue 6
Atomic Structure of (100) Surfaces of Zincblende Compound Semiconductors
journal, August 1996
- Kahn, A.
- Surface Review and Letters, Vol. 03, Issue 04
Evolution of electronic structure across the rare-earth RNiO3 series
journal, April 2016
- Freeland, John W.; van Veenendaal, Michel; Chakhalian, Jak
- Journal of Electron Spectroscopy and Related Phenomena, Vol. 208
Asymmetric Orbital-Lattice Interactions in Ultrathin Correlated Oxide Films
journal, September 2011
- Chakhalian, J.; Rondinelli, J. M.; Liu, Jian
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 107, Issue 11
Ultrathin oxide films and interfaces for electronics and spintronics
journal, February 2011
- Bibes, Manuel; Villegas, Javier E.; Barthélémy, Agnès
- Advances in Physics, Vol. 60, Issue 1
Control of octahedral connectivity in perovskite oxide heterostructures: An emerging route to multifunctional materials discovery
journal, March 2012
- Rondinelli, James M.; May, Steven J.; Freeland, John W.
- MRS Bulletin, Vol. 37, Issue 3
Polarity-driven nickel oxide precipitation in LaNiO 3 -LaAlO 3 superlattices
journal, November 2011
- Detemple, E.; Ramasse, Q. M.; Sigle, W.
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 99, Issue 21
Octahedral rotations in strained LaAlO 3 /SrTiO 3 (001) heterostructures
journal, February 2014
- Fister, T. T.; Zhou, H.; Luo, Z.
- APL Materials, Vol. 2, Issue 2
Metal-insulator transition in oxygen-deficient perovskites
journal, December 1996
- Sánchez, R. D.; Causa, M. T.; Caneiro, A.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 54, Issue 23
Thickness-dependent electronic structure in ultrathin films under tensile strain
journal, January 2016
- Yoo, Hyang Keun; Hyun, Seung Ill; Chang, Young Jun
- Physical Review B, Vol. 93, Issue 3
Charge Disproportionation without Charge Transfer in the Rare-Earth-Element Nickelates as a Possible Mechanism for the Metal-Insulator Transition
journal, March 2014
- Johnston, Steve; Mukherjee, Anamitra; Elfimov, Ilya
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 112, Issue 10
Reversible changes of epitaxial thin films from perovskite LaNiO3 to infinite-layer structure LaNiO2
journal, February 2009
- Kawai, Masanori; Inoue, Satoru; Mizumaki, Masaichiro
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 94, Issue 8
Low-dimensional Mott material: Transport in ultrathin epitaxial LaNiO3 films
journal, February 2010
- Son, Junwoo; Moetakef, Pouya; LeBeau, James M.
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 96, Issue 6
Insulating-layer formation of metallic LaNiO 3 on Nb-doped SrTiO 3 substrate
journal, March 2015
- Yoo, Hyang Keun; Chang, Young Jun; Moreschini, Luca
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 106, Issue 12
In situ surface/interface x-ray diffractometer for oxide molecular beam epitaxy
journal, January 2016
- Lee, J. H.; Tung, I. C.; Chang, S. -H.
- Review of Scientific Instruments, Vol. 87, Issue 1
Efficiency of ab-initio total energy calculations for metals and semiconductors using a plane-wave basis set
journal, July 1996
- Kresse, G.; Furthmüller, J.
- Computational Materials Science, Vol. 6, Issue 1, p. 15-50
Reduced forms of LaNiO 3 perovskite. Part 1.—Evidence for new phases: La 2 Ni 2 O 5 and LaNiO 2
journal, January 1983
- Crespin, Michel; Levitz, Pierre; Gatineau, Lucien
- J. Chem. Soc., Faraday Trans. 2, Vol. 79, Issue 8
Oxygen octahedron reconstruction in the heterointerfaces investigated using aberration-corrected ultrahigh-resolution transmission electron microscopy
journal, February 2009
- Jia, C. L.; Mi, S. B.; Faley, M.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 79, Issue 8
Polar asymmetry of La (1− δ ) Al (1+ δ ) O 3 /SrTiO 3 heterostructures probed by optical second harmonic generation
journal, September 2015
- Rubano, Andrea; De Luca, Gabriele; Schubert, Jürgen
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 107, Issue 10
Polarity compensation in ultra-thin films of complex oxides: The case of a perovskite nickelate
journal, October 2014
- Middey, S.; Rivero, P.; Meyers, D.
- Scientific Reports, Vol. 4, Issue 1
Orienting Oxygen Vacancies for Fast Catalytic Reaction
journal, October 2013
- Jeen, Hyoungjeen; Bi, Zhonghe; Choi, Woo Seok
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 25, Issue 44
Hidden lattice instabilities as origin of the conductive interface between insulating LaAlO3 and SrTiO3
journal, September 2016
- Lee, P. W.; Singh, V. N.; Guo, G. Y.
- Nature Communications, Vol. 7, Issue 1
Efficient iterative schemes for ab initio total-energy calculations using a plane-wave basis set
journal, October 1996
- Kresse, G.; Furthmüller, J.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 54, Issue 16, p. 11169-11186
Interface Physics in Complex Oxide Heterostructures
journal, March 2011
- Zubko, Pavlo; Gariglio, Stefano; Gabay, Marc
- Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics, Vol. 2, Issue 1
Tuning the Structure of Nickelates to Achieve Two-Dimensional Electron Conduction
journal, February 2014
- Kumah, Divine P.; Disa, Ankit S.; Ngai, Joseph H.
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 26, Issue 12
Two-Dimensional Electron Gases at Oxide Interfaces
journal, November 2008
- Mannhart, J.; Blank, D. H. A.; Hwang, H. Y.
- MRS Bulletin, Vol. 33, Issue 11
Reversible phase transformation of thin films studied in situ by spectroscopic ellipsometry
journal, November 2007
- Berini, Bruno; Keller, Niels; Dumont, Yves
- Physical Review B, Vol. 76, Issue 20
Evolution of the Interfacial Structure of on
journal, January 2011
- Pauli, S. A.; Leake, S. J.; Delley, B.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 106, Issue 3
Emergent phenomena at oxide interfaces
journal, January 2012
- Hwang, H. Y.; Iwasa, Y.; Kawasaki, M.
- Nature Materials, Vol. 11, Issue 2
Dynamical Mean-Field Theory of Nickelate Superlattices
journal, November 2011
- Han, M. J.; Wang, Xin; Marianetti, C. A.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 107, Issue 20
Why some interfaces cannot be sharp
journal, January 2006
- Nakagawa, Naoyuki; Hwang, Harold Y.; Muller, David A.
- Nature Materials, Vol. 5, Issue 3, p. 204-209
Beyond Condensed Matter Physics on the Nanoscale: The Role of Ionic and Electrochemical Phenomena in the Physical Functionalities of Oxide Materials
journal, November 2012
- Kalinin, Sergei V.; Borisevich, Albina; Fong, Dillon
- ACS Nano, Vol. 6, Issue 12
Oxidation energies of transition metal oxides within the framework
journal, May 2006
- Wang, Lei; Maxisch, Thomas; Ceder, Gerbrand
- Physical Review B, Vol. 73, Issue 19
Conductivity enhancement of ultrathin LaNiO3 films in superlattices
journal, November 2010
- Son, Junwoo; LeBeau, James M.; Allen, S. James
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 97, Issue 20
A polarity-induced defect mechanism for conductivity and magnetism at polar–nonpolar oxide interfaces
journal, October 2014
- Yu, Liping; Zunger, Alex
- Nature Communications, Vol. 5, Issue 1
Insulating state of ultrathin epitaxial LaNiO thin films detected by hard x-ray photoemission
journal, August 2011
- Gray, A. X.; Janotti, A.; Son, J.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 84, Issue 7
Strain-dependent transport properties of the ultra-thin correlated metal, LaNiO 3
journal, July 2011
- Moon, E. J.; Gray, B. A.; Kareev, M.
- New Journal of Physics, Vol. 13, Issue 7
Orbital Physics in Transition-Metal Oxides
journal, April 2000
- Tokura, Y.
- Science, Vol. 288, Issue 5465
Quasi-ideal strontium titanate crystal surfaces through formation of strontium hydroxide
journal, November 1998
- Koster, Gertjan; Kropman, Boike L.; Rijnders, Guus J. H. M.
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 73, Issue 20
Screening mechanisms at polar oxide heterointerfaces
journal, June 2016
- Hong, Seungbum; Nakhmanson, Serge M.; Fong, Dillon D.
- Reports on Progress in Physics, Vol. 79, Issue 7
High-resolution X-ray luminescence extension imaging
journal, February 2021
- Ou, Xiangyu; Qin, Xian; Huang, Bolong
- Nature, Vol. 590, Issue 7846
Interfacial dielectric layer as an origin of polarization fatigue in ferroelectric capacitors
journal, April 2020
- Do, M. T.; Gauquelin, N.; Nguyen, M. D.
- Scientific Reports, Vol. 10, Issue 1
Asymmetric orbital-lattice interactions in ultra-thin correlated oxide films
text, January 2010
- Chakhalian, J.; Rondinelli, J. M.; Liu, Jian
- arXiv
Dynamical Mean Field Theory of Nickelate Superlattices
text, January 2011
- Han, M. J.; Wang, X.; Marianetti, C. A.
- arXiv
Orienting oxygen vacancies for fast catalytic reaction
text, January 2013
- Jeen, Hyoungjeen; Bi, Zhonghe; Choi, Woo Seok
- arXiv
A polarity-induced defect mechanism for conductivity and magnetism at polar-nonpolar oxide interfaces
text, January 2014
- Yu, Liping; Zunger, Alex
- arXiv
Evolution of Electronic Structure Across the Rare-Earth RNiO$_3$ Series
preprint, January 2015
- Freeland, John W.; van Veenendaal, Michel; Chakhalian, Jak
- arXiv
Why Some Interfaces Cannot be Sharp
text, January 2005
- Nakagawa, Naoyuki; Hwang, Harold Y.; Muller, David A.
- arXiv
Works referencing / citing this record:
Controlling the Magnetic Properties of LaMnO 3 /SrTiO 3 Heterostructures by Stoichiometry and Electronic Reconstruction: Atomic‐Scale Evidence
journal, May 2019
- Li, Mengsha; Tang, Chunhua; Paudel, Tula R.
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 31, Issue 27
Carrier localization in perovskite nickelates from oxygen vacancies
journal, October 2019
- Kotiuga, Michele; Zhang, Zhen; Li, Jiarui
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 116, Issue 44
Figures / Tables found in this record: